Thursday, February 26, 2015

Top Shelf

     This morning I made my once a week work shopping trip to Wal-Mart. While I am at Wal-Mart I tend to people watch, to notice people. Every now and then, I will actually get a glimpse into people. This happened today. I noticed and older couple. She was in a motor scooter. He walked beside her. She was dressed to the nines, looked like she came off the pages of a 1920’s Vogue magazine. Her hair and make-up were in perfect order. She wore what looked to be a short mink coat. He was dressed in upper-end business casual wearing a tan trench coat.
I have no idea why I was walking down the soup aisle, only that perhaps it was a God thing. They had stopped at the soups. He held a can of soup out to her. “Here, I know you like this kind.” She did not look up at him. She was intent on looking at the self. She pointed with her cane and told him,”There, there’s the off-brand. Get that. “
On my drive back to work, I was reflecting on what I noticed between these two. He knew what she liked. That means that he has taken the time to take notice of her. He cared enough to offer her something that he knew she liked from the upper shelf. She declined; she wanted the off-brand, the one that was on the lower shelf. Why she made this choice, I do not know. However, I saw myself and my relationship with the Father in this couple.
There stands my Abba. He has taken from the upper most and said, “Here, I know you. I know you will like this. I know that you are in need of this. Here, take what I have reached into the uppermost to give to you.” I am so focused on the lower shelf that I do not notice what He is offering me. I respond with, "But there, right there, on the lower shelf is what I was looking for.” Here God is offering me so much more, and I forget to look up and see what it is He is offering. In my single vision, I stay focused on what I know instead of taking what He is offering me. I want to meet God where He is offering to reach me. I do not want to stay focused on the lower shelf.

Saturday, February 14, 2015

God's Love a healing Love

     My daily reading for today was focusing on love primarily God’s love. I assume that this is because today is Valentine’s Day.  I was hit by something that someone had said to me. “You make it hard for anyone to love you.” Even though that has not been said to me in a long time, the words still hurt. They did enough damage that some part of me believes that it is true. That person was not just saying they had a hard time loving me but that anyone would have a hard time loving me. Perhaps it was there way of justifying how they felt to include everyone. Nonetheless, I believed it I believed for so many reasons. I remember when I was in second grade I was not yet adopted but in foster care with my soon to be adopted parents. I cannot recall how the subject was brought up but one of my classmates said” Your real parents do not love you if they gave you up. They don’t love you”  I remember my stepfather telling me that if I wanted anyone to love me I had to do certain things that grown-ups do for each other because that is what love is.  Those are just a few of the twisted statements about love that damaged my idea of the meaning of love up until the past four years.  
    1 Corinthians 13:4-8 4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
Love is: Patient, kind, rejoices in truth, bears up under all problems, trusts, hopes understands the faults of others, never fails it perseveres
Love isn’t envious, proud, boastful, inappropriate, rude selfish, short-tempered, evil, accepting of sin
Love is not just a word we say, but also an attitude that we have towards others.

 I have love an over flowing endless supply of love. A love that heals the damage, I am an adopted child of my Abba Father. He loves me He loved me first and all I have to do is say “Yes” to the love and run freely into His embrace.  Because I understand and I can feel the love of God I know that all the twisted ideas have been replaced by the agape love from my creator. I can love God I can love others and I can love who I am as a new creation in Christ.